Surrender to the Clint. CLIIINNTT!

After Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More, I officially think young Clint Eastwood was the sexiest poncho wearing sharpshooter this side of the Mississippi universe, holy crap you guys.

Since dedicating 50 hours over 3 months of my life to Red Dead Redemption, I've developed a love for Westerns deeper than I ever thought possible. Liiiiiike I love them. A lot. And want to watch all of them. Now. SO. Having already seen The Searchers, I decided to start off my reentry into the world of Westerns with the Man With No Name trilogy - Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More & The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Maybe I'll even watch Duck, You Sucker. You don't know!

For those of you who have *only* seen GB&U, I highly recommend going back and seeing the first two, especially the second. While oddly the least well known of the three (in the mainstream), A Few Dollars More is fan-effing-tastic and I keep hearing from A LOT of movie lovers that it's their favorite of the three. And for you GB&U fans - it's when we first meet Lee Van Cleef and it's fuckin badass. I loved Fistful of Dollars as well, but FAFDM had more heart, more at stake, and the beginning of relationship between two bounty hunters that I suspect has influenced most things ever in the ever.

I also loved the dubbing. The dubbing! I don't know who could actually speak English in any of these movies other than Clint & Lee, but it didn't matter - the dubbing never took me out of it, I found it to be charming. Plus, these films have practically NO exposition. Because fuck that shit. Sergio Leone trusted his audience to get what was going on. And sure my "raised on exposition/ born in 1986" brain had to ask what was going on a few times, but I didn't mind.

ALSO.

This guy.

Gian Maria Volonte, oddly credited as Johnny Weis in Fistful of Dollars (playing a different character from his character in For A Few Dollars More, though both are villains) for no discernable reason. Apparently Volonte didn't take these movies too seriously, and just took the roles for the money. Cause he's a badass like that. He died of a heart attack at age 61, probably from all of that badassery. I LOVES him.

One of the greatest parts of watching these movies was seeing the clear inspiration for Red Dead. The landscapes, the towns, the music, the weapons, the duels, the transportation, the outfits, John Marsden himself, it's remarkable. And obvious - of course these movies would be a huge source to draw from for a western video game, but actually seeing it just felt really...neat. It felt neat.

And now for your enjoyment, a scene from For A Few Dollars More in which Clint is Clint and I die. Background: He is a bounty hunter and the dude he is about to interact with is his target. Video xposted to my tumblr.